Warm Bodies Oneshots
by TheSnowPrincess99
Summary: A series of one shots starting before, during and after Warm Bodies.
1. Chapter 1

Romeo walked slowly down the road, refusing to look back. If he looked back, he might remember all of the reasons that he had stayed in the past, and he might never leave. He couldn't do much - he had been just a scrawny kid and then a scrawny teen - but he had tried. Maybe he should- No! He had made a promise to himself seven years ago when the zombie apocalypse started; he had been twelve at the time. He had seen two teenagers running back to the stadium, earlier when he hid in the subway from them, but he thought nothing of it; it was now time for him to leave the prison and be free.

He could have hotwired a car probably, and it would have been safer, but he had driven in cars lots of times, going to his aunt's house to hide. Cars were full of memories. He wanted to start his new life out right. Making new, wonderful memories of escaping, rather than wallowing in the past.

The day was cool, clouds massing overhead, and the wind tugged at his red hoodie, but he didn't feel cold. Something about exhilaration would do that, he supposed. The thrill of finally being free.

Because he was doing it; he was finally leaving. He would never have to be bruised and bleeding again. He would never have to watch another person get hurt. He was going to be free.

There was no one around, no buildings, just empty fields and sky as far as the eye could see. And a few miles away was the airport, like some kind of mecca.

But he just never expected the zombies attacking.


	2. Chapter 2

Okay, so time to evaluate my situation. My back hurts. Like really hurts. Like it feels like something bit me. I remember leaving the stadium, but nothing much after that. Blacking out isn't generally a good sign. Why does my back hurt? Was I in an accident? No, because that would have happened before I got here, and I remember the getting here part.

I'm starving. Like worse than forgot to eat breakfast and lunch starving. Why am I so hungry? Have I not eaten in just forever? My stomach feels like it's trying to eat its way out of my ribs. Wow, not the best description ever.

Hey, why is that guy's face hanging half off? That's really gross. Why is everyone all pale and red-eyed and stuff? And why are they all just shuffling around like their bodies don't quite work properly? Even the kids? This is so not good. This is like strait out of some B-grade zombie movie and oh my god!

I'm a zombie!

I mean, that has to be it, right? Why we're all pale and dead-eyed and broken looking. I don't know. All I really know is that we didn't make it - I didn't make it. I don't know if that we only refers to everybody here at the airport, or if humanity in general is just completely fucked.

Maybe I should check it out. Like walk into town or something. No, wait, if this is a zombie apocalypse and there are survivors, they probably will have guns. And they're going to want to shoot me! This is so not good. I don't want to die. I mean, I know I'm already kind of dead, or undead, or whatever, but that isn't the same as brains splattered against the pavement kind of dead. I'd rather take pale and stumbly than completely gone.

Maybe I'll just wander around here for a little longer. Yeah, that's a good plan. I'll do that.


	3. Chapter 3

I don't remember much of anything. I remember opening my eyes to a bleak, grey world and feeling a deep... hunger. What for, I didn't know. I didn't remember my name. Did I ever have one? If I did, it would start with M. I don't know.

For a long time I just wandered. The hunger grew, but nothing seemed to whet my appetite. I would have asked someone, but I couldn't talk. I couldn't do much really. Just shuffle around and make groaning noises. The weirdest thing was, I couldn't find anybody. I couldn't even hear the birds sing. I could smell, but what I could smell was the faint musk of death and despair. I felt lost and insignificant. I didn't know what to do or where to go... so I just kept walking.

I don't know how long I was walking for. Long enough I suppose. I reached a building.. I think it was... I can't remember the name. It will come to me. Hey, I just came back from non-existence. Don't look at me like that. I wandered in, cause I had nothing better to do and it looked inviting to me. And there, I saw... zombies. I see dead people. Literally, dead people just wandering around. Groaning, just like me. I blended into the crowd perfectly. Everyone was the same... wait.

Who was that? He doesn't look... His eyes...

They are brighter than the others... not quite dead. In front of me, doing the same as everyone else was a boy. He was wearing a red hoodie and jeans. He had black hair and pale skin. But it was his eyes... he had the eyes of the dead sure. He certainly wasn't alive. But, they didn't look dead either.

I had to speak to him. I had to see those eyes close up. I made my way over to him, occasionally bumping into others because apparently, when you become a walking corpse, manners don't matter anymore! And sometimes almost falling onto my ass, I finally reached the boy. I grunted loudly to get his attention, and he turned to face me. For a long while, neither of us did much of anything. We just stared gormlessly at each other. I grunted at him and he grunted back.

Believe it or not that was the start of a friendship. I felt close to this not-quite-dead kid. Together we killed and ate, and we relished in each other's company. I was glad I wandered to this building, because if I hadn't I would still be lost. I was hungry. That's nothing new, but hunger has a tendency to not go away, unless of course you chow on something. I was ready to go out, but it's suicidal for a zombie to hunt alone. Our prey isn't exactly defenseless. So here I am, wandering around looking for R and any other bloodthirsty zombies. Like myself, others seem to be attracted to R's unique eyes and so I was looking for him first. One problem with that... I could not find him ANYWHERE! I looked at all the places I knew he would be and was now looking in the darker waiting rooms. No one comes round these parts anymore. It reminds us too much of what we are... and we like to pretend we are alive. Well, some of us do anyway.

I heard the familiar screech of a boney and I knew I had to turn back. I was just noticing the faint smell of a fresh kill and I knew that I should get as far away as possible. I turned and started ambling away when I heard a familiar groan. I could have groaned myself. What did R think he was doing?! I made my way to the noises as fast as I could, cursing myself that my fast was a living's slow.

I turn the corner to see two bonies standing in front of R. who was standing in front of a body, still leaking blood, and I could see blood on his hands. What was happening? Suddenly one of the bonies moved, almost so fast I didn't see it. He smacked R in the side of the face, causing R to fall to the floor with a SMACK.

The other boney leaped onto R, smacking him again and leaning down with its mouth wide open. I didn't think; I just attacked. If the boney bit R in the head and cracked through his skull... R would be gone. I grabbed the boney on R and threw him into the other. They crashed to the floor, before slowly standing up and standing side-by-side facing me. I had placed myself I front of R. If they wanted to kill him, they'd have to kill me first. Cliché I know, but I didn't care.

R was special, a diamond in the rough. I had to protect him! The bonies lunge for me simultaneously, but I was prepared. I kicked one in the chest and sidestepped the other. The one I kicked down started to get up, but I kicked it again and stomped on its skull. The bone crumbled and snapped on my foot, but I had forgotten about the other.

I was tackled to the floor from behind, landing hard. It's a good thing we can't feel pain because I'm quite sure a few ribs cracked. I managed to turn myself onto my back and kick the monster off me. I grabbed a chair that stood alone and threw it onto the skull. Both bonies lay motionless, and R hadn't moved. I threw the chair and made my way to R.

I crouched beside him and placed my hand gently on his shoulder. He cracked his eyes open and stared at me. We didn't say anything, but I could almost feel the gratitude rolling off him. I don't know how long we stayed like that, in the middle of a dark room with two dead bonies lying away from us. After a while R started to move and I helped him up. The two hits to the head had clearly muddled him and he swayed slightly. I stared at him, concerned. He ignored me and made his way to the corpse. I watched as he grabbed the grey matter and shoved it into the pockets of his hoodie. I stared at him, jaw slack. That was what all he wanted from his kill? It made me feel confused, and I wandered forward.

"W.. wh.. why?" I managed. He looked at me, a strange look in his expressive (as expressive as a zombie can get anyway) and whispered one thing.

"Alive..."


	4. Chapter 4

R considered the small object on the floor. It was multi-colored, and it stirred a familiar memory deep in his brain. He wasn't sure why, but he remembered this object. He picked it up and stared at it. There were small, colorful squares on all sides, and he knew that those were somehow important.

He had felt this before, once or twice, and he had always shoved the feeling aside, but this time R considered it. He was hungry, and couldn't remember the last time he had eaten, but this little thing - cube! cube! - This little cube was important somehow. If he could only remember- Outside, someone snarled, and R spun around, nostrils flaring.

_Food._

Hours later, back at the airport, R stuck his hand into his hoodie pocket, and it encountered something unexpected. Pulling it out, he discovered the small, colorful cube. This was important, he remembered, and he should hold on to it.

Cradling the cube, R began to look for a safe place to stash his new treasure.


	5. Chapter 5

There used to be a bell. For a long time, it would ring out once a day, at what I figured was roughly noon. At least, the sun was rather high in the sky, so I assumed it was close to noon.

I don't know if daylight savings is still a thing or not.

I wasn't sure what it meant, or why it happened, and I honestly wasn't even positive about the every single day thing. But it was there, often, like a death knell for the world. Like someone was mourning the loss of their civilization. I mourned it too, in my own way. Well, I guess technically I'm part of the problem, rather than the solution, but that wasn't exactly my fault, was it? I could still be upset that it had happened, right?

Then one day it stopped. Well, it didn't just stop one day. It was just one day that I noticed that it hadn't rung out in a while. Okay, technically, it had stopped on one day, but that just wasn't the day that I had noticed.

I'm getting confused. It happens a lot now, now that I've become a corpse. Probably something to do with the blood not flowing to my brain properly or whatever. Let me try this again.

One day the bell stopped knelling. And one day a little while later, I noticed that it had stopped. That whoever had been mourning for this world had stopped. And it was a fairly good bet that they had stopped because someone else - someone like me - had finally eaten them.

And for some reason, that thought made me sad. And I decided that I wanted to ring a bell for that person. To show that someone had noticed what they were doing, and that they had stopped. I'm not sure why I wanted that, or what good it would do. The other person was probably dead by now, and I think I'm the only one who has all of these thoughts anyway. But, still, I wanted to try. So that day I began to look for a bell.

I've found records and bobble-heads and everything else you can think of, but no bell yet. Seriously, M says I'm turning into a pack rat, but pack rats are probably nice animals, and I bet that they are prepared for anything. But pretty soon I won't be able to fit into my plane.

But I won't stop looking.


	6. Chapter 6

"Perry, I think I love you," Julie whispered.

Perry barely heard her. He had barely heard anything since that day, a few months ago, when they had snuck outside the walls. Since the day his father had tried to kill him. Since the day that Julie killed his father. Shot him in the head like an animal.

He had realized something very important that day, passing that Romeo kid as they raced back to the relative safety of the stadium. As Julie tugged him along, firing blindly over her shoulder at the lumbering Corpses, he realized something. He had known those Corpses. Just a few days ago, those men had joked with him and his father as they prepared to leave. And somehow, between that moment and this moment, they had become Corpses. They had died.

And with perfect clarity, Perry realized that everything General Grigio did was pointless. They were all going to die. They were all going to become Corpses one day. The walls just delayed the inevitable; the guns just delayed the inevitable. Guns just delayed the inevitable.

Some day - some day _soon _- he was going to become a Corpse. And Julie was going to become a Corpse. And Nora, and Kevin, and Colonel Grigio, and every other human who had somehow managed to survive until this point. They were all going to become Corpses in the end. The only alternative was to shoot yourself in the head now, becoming a lifeless body that could never come back. Better a corpse than a Corpse. Perry had considered it seriously a few times, but he just wasn't strong enough to pull the trigger.

Julie didn't seem to be affected by their disastrous jaunt outside the walls. Of course, she had seen her Corpse mother shot in the head by her own father at the tender age of twelve, so maybe she had already come to this realization years ago. Maybe she had found some way to live with it.

Perry couldn't live with it. They were all going to die - they were all just Corpses-to-be. What was the point of doing anything else? Why not just open the gates and let the inevitable happen?

"Say something. Don't just say nothing."

Julie's words brought him back to the moment. Seeing her frown, Perry quickly tried to figure out what she was talking about.

Love.

If you want to call this love. Love really had nothing to do with it. They were all just Corpses, waiting for the inevitable bite. Love was pointless.

But Julie believed in it, so he lied. Pretended that he was in love with her. "No, I uh... I think I love you too, Julie."

Once she was a Corpse, she wouldn't remember this conversation anyway.


	7. Chapter 7

I looked dazedly around the airport, lit only by the few streams of light radiating from the windows. When did my life come to this? Was I really doomed to a life of monotony, stumbling around aimlessly and curbing my now near insatiable appetite?

I shrugged. Aside from the irresistible urge to eat human brains and entrails it didn't feel so different from my human life. As a human I wandered aimlessly, never knowing who I really was and never feeling the need to excel at anything; At least that's what I think my human life was like. And here I am, still wandering, not particularly worried about accomplishing anything and unable to remember my name, well apart from R, nothing. How pathetic. Not that I care.

But no matter how many times I tell myself that I don't care, that being forced to live this way doesn't affect me in the least, something inside of me cared, and it cared a lot. I felt trapped inside myself, unable to escape no matter how badly I wanted to claw my way out. I want to reach out, to connect with people, but the closest thing to communication I'm capable of is groaning, the occasional word, and staring at people creepily in hopes that they will see past my monster like exterior into my complex and sensitive interior.

Sick of being in the airport, I left the building and slowly began the trek into the city. 'I may as well be bored somewhere else' I thought to myself. The minute I entered the town, I heard the sound of humans being attacked, likely by one of us, followed by gunshots. I heard someone coming my way and hid just in time as the humans with guns rounded the corner.

I watched them quietly with baited breath, not wanting to be discovered. I don't want to get a bullet through the skull today thank you very much!

One of them in particular I couldn't help but notice a petite girl with long blonde hair and one hell of a feisty attitude. I watched them, remaining as quiet and still as possible. Not that staying still was difficult for me, I mean; I'm a zombie for crying out loud! It's in the contract next to eating brains and groaning.

I continued to watch them, and the more I watched, the more I began to like the blonde. And by like, I mean not feel the need to eat her. And in my books, if I don't want to eat someone I must like them. Not entirely sure why I like her though...must be her 'grab life by the horns' attitude. I mean, opposites are said to attract, right?

I was snapped out of my thoughts upon hearing someone approach my general direction and looked up, seeing a guy, gun at the ready. I remained as still and quiet as possible and breathed a sigh- a VERY quiet sigh- of relief when he walked right past my hiding place, not noticing me. "We'd better get back, it's getting late." the blonde called to the guy.

"Coming Julie" the guy replied, finishing his sweep of the perimeter and returned to the group, walking away with them.

I waited for who knows how long, making sure that they were really gone before coming out of hiding and stumbling around some more. All the while one thing going through my mind:

"Julie"


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as the noises were gone, Nora slipped out of her hiding place. She ached all over and even walking was painful, but she knew that she couldn't stay beneath the desk forever. Worse things than Corpses roamed this world. She looked out the window, and saw Julie walking away, surrounded by the Corpses who had just attacked them. Nora wasn't sure if she had been turned or was only a captive, but there was nothing she could do about it either way. She had to save herself.

It took her a few minutes, but she found a gun that still had some ammo left - Jeff's - and then she began a careful inspection of the room. There were a few bodies on the floor, and she checked each one carefully. There were four Corpses, each with a head-shot. Nora stared at the one who had pinned her for a long moment before moving on. There were also five humans, all dead: Perry, Berg, Monique, Jeff, and Thom. All five had had their skulls busted in, and Nora tried to avoid looking at them above the neck.

Nora wanted to race back to the city, but Perry's words halted her. They needed a pharma run desperately; she knew that better than most, as she was normally on work detail at the infirmary. It was a gruesome task to get the other's bags, but she managed it, and she filled them all as quickly as possible. The Corpses were gone, but that didn't mean that there weren't more out there. Or worse, Bonies.

Slinging the bags over her shoulder, wincing as they smacked into her bruises, she grabbed a second loaded gun and, doubly armed, burst out into the hallway. The trip back was nerve- wracking, but mercifully free of the walking dead. Nora almost sobbed when she saw the graffiti scrawl "Welcome to the Dead Zone" that they had passed on the way out. She hurried around the corner, knowing that she was almost to safety. Kevin was on duty, and he hurried towards her, raising his gun.

"I'm not bitten!" She yelled, holding her two guns up in her least threatening way. "I'm fine!"

She wasn't really. She had just seen her best friend get dragged away by Corpses and the deaths of the rest of the hunting party. She was bruised from head to toe and had almost died herself. She wasn't bitten, wasn't going to turn into a corpse, but she was _not _fine. Julie was dead. At best. At worst she was rotting somewhere out there in no man's land eating people's brains, as you do. Which really, wasn't that terrible an end when you considered it was what happened to most of the population. But still, most of the population hadn't been Nora's best friend.

Nora was nineteen years old when she first met Julie. She had just battled through a swarm of zombies, and ran ten miles straight. She was caked in sweat, grime and blood, gasping loudly as her knees finally gave out from under her, but she got there in the end. She finally hit humans. Though her speed and stamina were not anything to brag about, she'd admit to remembering races when she was little and how those would turn out, it's amazing what adrenaline can make you do when it really comes down to it.

Nora has since then always had a special relationship with her adrenaline.

She wasn't proud of the way she acted after that, after she hit humanity again. She had been away for a really long time, but she knew that wasn't an excuse. She knew she didn't have any excuses to fall back on, I mean, she was in the middle of a zombie apocalypse there really wasn't time for her to act out. So she met Julie, Julie tried to be her friend because she thought Nora needed it, or, maybe in retrospect, Julie needed it too. Julie always needed people.

She remembers that and winces, but she also remembers volunteering to go out beyond the wall to get supplies because she's good with a gun and they need people to do the dirty work and she's one her own now so why not? She remembers how holding a gun with a hand with one less finger felt different, and she remembers how she shook when the boneys came after.

Julie saved her that day. She shot all three of the boneys bearing down on Nora right through the skull but that wasn't how she saved her.

Something broke a little bit, that day, Nora figures. Something deep inside her that needed to crack, and when she got back behind the wall she dropped her weapons, clutched at her hands and cried until she was gasping for air.

Julie had been there. Julie had held her close and kept her safe and made terrible jokes that actually made Nora smile and it was that night that Nora realized what she had to do, and she had to put everything into living or nothing at all.

Julie had asked her what she liked. They spent an two hours straight talking about cats. Nora doubts she'll ever forget when Julie gave her that little white kitten and said, "He's yours, give him a cool name, yeah?" She ended up naming him Adrenaline. Julie said it was lame but it caught on pretty fast regardless of Julie being a buzz kill over Nora's cat naming capabilities.

Nora was good with a gun but she didn't like them. She liked fixing things, she learned when she really got what the friendship Julie had offered her at the beginning meant, and she remembered once that she loved to heal things. Julie told her that their world needed people to fight like crazy but it also needed just as many people to help it heal and grow and laugh once in every year or so.

Nora figured out that she could be one of those healers, and something changed after that. Julie, Perry and Nora would always take time to go on hikes and tell crazy stories and just hang out, not worrying about anything; it kept you sane she discovered. It kept you laughing. Nora found it to be a little bit contagious, just a little, and started getting known around town as the joker, who was practically always lighthearted and up for a good laugh, running around, being inappropriate with Julie, getting people to laugh with or at her. That helped people too, she learned. And it didn't make her want to cry like shooting someone did. Yes, even zombies. It stopped having any appeal after she had to kill zombies of people she'd known, people she'd loved.

Nora closed her eyes and let a couple of tears fall as she breathed in deeply, just for a moment. There were always things to be fixed and people to heal but right now she would just take one minute for her best friend and cry.


	9. Chapter 9

Julie whooped as the car sped around the tarmac. This far away from the airport's buildings, there were few vehicles and almost no Corpses wandering around. The farthest landing strip was a mess, caused by a crashing plane whose passengers had turned, but the second to last one was remarkably clear and open. The wind whipped through Julie's hair and her grin widened.

At home, inside her father's fortress, everything was crammed together. There was no wind, and the giant walls often obscured the sun. The sky was limited, and the taller nearby buildings made it seem even smaller. Julie vaguely remembered where they had lived before the plague, though she had been young at the time. It was in the suburbs, just out of town, right where the housing tracts met the surrounding flat country. Just beyond their driveway was the local park, and beyond it were just orchards, as far as the eye could see.

Julie and Nora would sit on the swings staring out over the orchard at the setting sun and talk about what they were going to do when they grew up. Strangely, neither one had planned on being a refugee in a zombie apocalypse.

When the attacks started, they were worse in the inner city, where people were jammed so close together. The suburbs had time to think, to plan, to get their guns ready. It wasn't until after the initial wave that her father had started fighting into town and building the camp there. It was because the resources were closer together, and so were the buildings. The same sized walls could encompass far more houses and shops in the crammed downtown areas than they could in the sprawling burbs. It was tactical thinking, which was what made her father a survivor.

But Julie missed the sky.

She had discovered the sports arena, which was wonderfully capacious, and her first gasp had echoed forever. She wasn't sure why her dad hadn't enclosed it too - all they needed to do was pour concrete across all the entrances and they had a giant, impenetrable home. She finally decided that he might have liked the many buildings on the block, which offered real separation when people needed it. The bowl would have been like on giant sleepover; no privacy. And if there was one thing her dad liked more than shooting things in the head, it was privacy.

But Julie loved the arena. She could lie on the AstroTurf and pretend it was real grass. She could gaze up at the covered dome and pretend it was a sky. She could imagine, just for a moment, that she was free, instead of being trapped within her father's towering walls all the time. There was a fine line between protection and imprisonment, and Julie wasn't sure when her father had crossed it, but she knew he had.

That was probably why she hadn't objected too much to R's request that she stay a little longer. His plane was just one more kind of imprisonment, but at least it was different. There was music, and a little bit of excitement - well, terror, really - and she could watch the sun rise and set through the windows.

She had forgotten how beautiful a sunset was.

The sun technically sank beyond the walls, giving them a much shorter day than outside, but with none of the amazing atmospheric coloring that she remembered from her childhood. Coloring that she could see from the plane. And now from the tarmac.

As she slowed the car down, the wind ceased, and she finally came to a gentle stop at the end of the runway. There wasn't a Corpse in sight, so it was safe; she was sure, to park for a few minutes. R looked at her in the way she had begun to identify as questioning, and she smiled. "I wanted to watch the sunset," she explained.

He seemed to consider that for a moment, before shrugging. "Don't... remember..." he managed to say.

She decided to interpret this as him not remembering watching it when alive. Zombies probably didn't notice things like sunsets once they were, you know, dead. "Well, we can watch this one together," Julie decided.

R smiled crookedly. "Together."

Julie smiled back and then turned to face the sun. The sky was lit up in red and yellow and purple, and high above her a shade of blue. More importantly, it just seemed to go on forever. There was emptiness and sky in every direction around her, stretching out forever to the horizon. And it was so much better than Julie remembered. So much better than lying on the AstroTurf trying to pretend. So much better than anything she had seen in years. As the sunset, Julie finally felt free.


	10. Chapter 10

"R?" Julie's voice cuts through his thoughts and he glances up from the book he's puzzling through-a brief, kid-sized chapter book that he's been working on all day. Not everything comes back instantly, and this miniature minefield of words has been enthralling and frustrating him in turns for quite some time. He isn't quite content with being relegated to whatever elementary school fodder has survived the carnage of the past years, but the novelty of letters arranging themselves into discernible words under his eyes hasn't worn away yet.

"Yes?" He always avoids guttural and noncommittal "hmmm"s when responding, because they remind him of things he would rather not remember, and they stick in his throat like mouthfuls of fatty flesh that he doesn't like to remember either. He blinks up from the page and sees Julie thumbing through his collection of vinyl. He has managed a prodigious stash over the years-they weren't the sort of things that looters went after in the rubble of ruined lives, so they were an easy target for his innocent thievery.

"You don't have any David Bowie," she accuses, in a tone that makes that sound significant. Her frowns at her, perplexed. "You don't know who David Bowie is?"

"No," All things considered, the Apocalypse wasn't a time to pick and choose which music you listened to, and although he had his preferences, he normally made his decisions based on the aesthetic quality of the cardboard cover. Up until recently the names had meant nothing to him.

"Geeze, R," she laughed affectionately and abandoned her search to come and perch on the arm of the chair he was inhabiting. Her face turned pensive and she added quietly, "I guess it's not your fault. He got pretty controversial for a while."

"Really? What did he do?" He knows that he is stepping into a conversation about Before, and he approaches it hesitantly. But there is the irritated feeling of not knowing something itching at the back of his brain, and he is struggling to remember if another version of him knew who David Bowie was, so he presses on.

"There was a lot of end of the world type stuff," she said with a shrug. "I mean, it was old music, really old, but nobody wanted to listen to it after a while. My dad and I went to a supermarket one time, back when there were supermarkets, and they actually had a radio station playing. This song was playing, about the world ending and people crying and my dad's face got really-hard, like even our music was attacking us. Later on, there was a ban on David Bowie," she laughs at the memory. "Think about that, we're all dying and starving and living in glorified shantytowns and trying to find new ways to jump start the world, and they try to ban what music we listen to, just like they try to ban everything else," she kicks her heels against the chair, and then swings into a cross-legged position, her tiny body balancing expertly on the narrow space.

He stares her down, because these stories never end there. He is not disappointed.

"His voice was just-" she paused and thought hard. "I heard him singing that song and he sounded like he could have cried, and it felt really...real, you know?" She glances at him for input, graciously ignoring the fact that he probably doesn't know.

He nods.

"Anyways, you could find music if you knew how. When I was eleven I found an iPod on a dead girl, and there was a best of album on there or something," she pulls the fabled device out of her pocket. It is like everything else these days: a device made for enjoyment, but looking like a war memento.

R sighs as he smooth's his hoodie, and makes wrinkles his nose at the device "I…don't…like…iPods," comes out of his mouth before she shushes him and tells him not to be a know-it-all, with a laugh just behind her voice. She plugs in the device and music-less rich than vinyl, he stubbornly wants to remind her-fills the room.

_Pushing through the market square_

_So many mothers sighing_

_News had just come over _

_We had five years left to cry in News guy wept and told us_

_Earth was really dying _

_Cried so much his face was wet _

_So I knew he was not lying_

_And I heard-_

R drops his book and jerks forward to stop the music. It's the kind of introspective, melancholy embrace of reality that he can see Julie loving, but the past emanates too strongly from those words, and when he turns to her, his eyes are filled with panic. "I don't like it," he half-whispers with a desperation he hopes she understands. The apology shows in her face, but instead of speaking she changes the song.

_Turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes _

_Don't want to be a richer man Ch-ch-ch-changes_

_Turn and face the strange Ch-ch-changes_

_Just gonna have to be a different man Time may change me But I can't trace time._

As he listens he relaxes into the words. These don't frighten him or remind him of the past. They remind him of the future. He closes his eyes and rests his head against Julie's arm as the music plays.

_And these children that you spit on _

_As they try to change their world _

_They're immune to your consultations _

_They're quite aware of what they're going through._

They listen to the whole album, and somewhere near the end he decides that he doesn't hate iPods after all.


	11. Chapter 11

M looked around. There was another Corpse who usually sat here with him. Red hoodie. Nice guy. They had just eaten together. But this was like the second day - or maybe third - and he hadn't come to the counter to chat. Not that they were that eloquent anymore, but it was what passed for conversation around here nowadays. M kind of enjoyed it. He even found himself thinking of the kid as a friend.

Which was strange, right? I mean, they were all dead, or undead, technically, and friendship wasn't really their thing anymore. Or it shouldn't have been. Still, it had been longer than usual, and M was feeling... what was the word? Curious? Alarmed? Worried? Could Corpses worry? Was there anything for them to worry about?

He felt strange.

He'd felt like this ever since they had gone to the city to feed. The feeding hadn't been much different than usual. He'd gotten a brain, and it was wonderful. A brief glimpse of humanity. And then it was gone, and he was looking around at the others and wondering why they did this. He often thought that after eating a piece of brain: the price that came with that prize.

That hadn't been the different thing.

No, the difference had happened later, sometime during the walk back. Well, the shuffle back. Something had been different - off - but he couldn't place it. It was like an itch that he couldn't scratch, and it took him most of the walk just to remember what _that _felt like. Corpses didn't itch, but there was a hint of a memory of what it felt like. And it felt like this. Like a very confusing, unreachable itchy feeling.

M wasn't exactly pleased with the way his life was going - or not - right now, but he wasn't sure he liked the itch, either. Hey, maybe Red Hoodie was feeling it too! Maybe they could communicate that somehow, like they sometimes did. Pushing away from the counter, M shuffled through the airport. There was a plane, outside, where his friend sometimes went. He had noticed it, when he was walking around. He liked to walk outside, because the sun was warm and if he felt it long enough he imagined that maybe he was getting warmer. Maybe he was feeling it.

But Corpses couldn't feel.

Still, he had nothing better to do, so he walked, and sometimes he saw his friend out there too. And if he was, maybe M could see if he felt different too. It was dark right now - night - so the sun wouldn't be warm, but Red Hoodie might still be out there. His friend. And he might know what was going on.


	12. Chapter 12

The streets were empty, as always. Cars were parked in the middle sometimes, at odd angles, but it wasn't like in the disaster movies, with a massive traffic jam on every rode. It was actually fairly easy to navigate - in part because her dad's troops had shoved some cars out of the way for easier access. There was almost no sound in this world; birds and other animals had died out just as humans had. The wheels hummed on the pavement, but she found herself missing those days in the plane, with music playing all the time.

It had been scary, yes, and R had a creepy tendency to stare, and god she'd been hungry. But it had also been kind of exciting, and a little exhilarating, and... Canorous. Full of music and cheer all the time, unlike the grim fatalism of her father's encampment. And she hadn't heard so many of those songs in years. There were iPods still, and the electricity to charge them, but without the Internet, they were stuck with a limited number of CDs. Rescue and foraging parties had greater concerns than hunting down new tunes.

But R had dozens of records - maybe hundreds - crammed into the corners of his plane. Julie had an irrational urge to swing past the old record shop on Main and pick him out some new ones, but she squelched that thought quickly. She wasn't going to see R again. If anything, she should be looking for more CDs for Nora to add to her iPod. She shouldn't be worried about a Corpse's taste in music anyways! Even if it was good!

She was so distracted by her inner argument that she didn't notice at first when the tank ran empty. R was probably the only Corpse to ever try to drive one of the cars in the parking garage and he probably wasn't too concerned with refueling. It was a sweet ride, but without gas it was useless, and without a gun she didn't feel comfortable walking to the nearest station and back. It was possible that one of the other cars on the road would have gas and would even start, and she really should try them. It wasn't safe to be outside the walls. Especially alone. Especially without a gun.

Instead, Julie walked. She walked across the bridge, and down fifth, and over to Main. And she stood outside of the record store, staring at it. It was still full; the windows weren't even broken, so the records were probably all in perfect condition. Once again she was struck by the irresistible urge to take them back to R. She felt bad for leaving him, especially after promising to stay together. Who gives a damn that he had killed Perry? After all she had shot Perry's father. Her own father had shot her mother. Did it really matter anymore?

She just didn't know.

Julie trailed one hand over the store's window. All she knew was she missed R. And she missed the music.


	13. Chapter 13

R couldn't remember the last time he had washed himself - probably sometime before he had died - and the simple act of standing beneath the hot water stirred something deep within him. He wasn't quite sure what it was, but it was similar to the way he had felt the first time he looked at Julie, before Perry had shot him. The feeling of changing.

As much as he welcomed the feeling, it was uncomfortable too; this change, and it seemed to be happening so fast. Part of him wanted to stop, to get out of the shower and shamble back to his airplane full of his treasures. But Julie was here, and Julie had asked him to take the shower.

So R let the water pound over his body, and after a few minutes, the sensations began to penetrate the fog in his brain. The water against his skin was hot, and he began to feel warm for the first time in years. The smell of the airport - something he had never really bothered to break down and catalogue before - washed away, to be replaced by the _spring rain _of body wash and shampoo. R didn't really remember what spring rain smelled like, but he liked the smell from the bottle. And when he was done and was reaching for a towel, the smell stayed with him, faintly, replacing the odor of decay and waiting that he had finally washed away.

He found he liked the smell. And he liked the changes.


	14. Chapter 14

"Hey, are you even listening? R! HEY ROMEO!"

"What?!" R replied before he realized what he was doing. He hadn't heard Nora speaking earlier, mostly because he'd been staring at Julie, but at that name he had suddenly snapped to attention.

"He doesn't remember his name," Julie filled in helpfully, but Nora wasn't paying attention anymore. "Oh my god!" Nora gasped.

"What?" Julie looked around, concerned. R tried to look around too, but he was currently strapped to a medical table while they made sure his shot healed and that he didn't, you know, turn back into a mindless zombie. Of course, he had never really been mindless, but those kinds of distinctions, he had learned, were lost on Julie's father.

"It's like the story!" Nora was saying. "Romeo and Juliet."

Julie frowned, but stopped looking around for danger. "I don't-"

Nora started getting excited. "You remember, from school? Or the movie? There's like, a billion versions. You had to have heard of it. Two sides fighting, and then a kid from each side meets in secret and fall in love. And they all die at the end! Romeo and Juliet! R and Julie!"

Oh god, R did remember reading that in school. It was there. Romeo and Juliet.

"We are not Romeo and Juliet!" Julie protested.

A flash of the ending raced through his mind and R did his best to smile. "Yeah, I'm already dead!" he offered in his cheerful-est tone. Both girls turned and looked at him. It was a look he was starting to classify, as 'sometimes you shouldn't say things.' Fortunately, it did get them off of the subject.

As Julie shook her head, Nora continued. "Anyway, he's doing much better. The hole is closing just as you'd expect in any human. He's not one hundred percent back, but he's almost as real as us." she gestured around the infirmary. "Realer than the others."

"Good!" Julie slipped her hand into R's and squeezed gently. She was doing it more and more often, and he really enjoyed it.

"Hey!" Nora grinned. "Maybe we should call him Pinocchio instead! 'Cause he's becoming a real boy!"

Julie moaned, and her hand slipped out of his. "Okay, new rule; you aren't allowed to watch or read anything, ever again." She playfully shoved her friend.

R felt a little embarrassed, but also amused. It was taking him time, but he was re-identifying all of those feelings and sensations that he had been without for the past year. R knew it had been a year, he had kept careful count of the days. But feelings like amusement and embarrassment were coming back to him slowly, and he appreciated the bad feelings alongside the good. Pain, embarrassment, real hunger... they were nothing compared to feeling love again.

"Speaking of becoming a human, how about Beauty and the Beast?" Nora said loudly, laughing. "No? Princess and the Frog? I've literally got a plethora of examples. Astroboy? I, Robot? oooh! How about the Little Mermaid!"

"That's it Nora!" Julie stood up and started dragging her towards the door. Her voice was stern, but there was laughter on her face too. "I'm feeding you to a Boney!"

And for the first time in his memory, R laughed too.


	15. Chapter 15

"So..." Julie chewed her lip, as she faced her rescuer turned boyfriend in front of her. It had been a couple of days since her dad shot him in the chest. She winced. Ah well, at least the blood had served to prove he was coming back to life. "Heh." R smiled at her, wondering what she was thinking as she studied him. He leaned back against the counter. They were in the kitchen at Julie's house. Suddenly his stomach gave a hungry rumble.

He would have blushed, but he didn't quite have all his color back yet. He was still recovering from being dead after all. "Has your stomach always growled like that when you're hungry?" She asked, giving him that impish grin whenever she thought she was uncovering something new about him. "Oh don't shrug at me like that." He dropped his shoulders, and as he did his stomach gurgled again. He ducked his head. "Don't want... to eat. Not hurt people anymore." "Well of course we wouldn't feed you people, silly." Julie rolled her eyes. "Maybe you have to adjust slowly. You could start with raw meat, then work your way up to cooked meat, and maybe you could even eat vegetables again someday." He made a face. She laughed and headed for the door. "I'll be right back." Julie returned with a piece of raw beef, a rare commodity, but something that would become more accessible once the corpses all recovered and all the skeletons died off. R sat at the table, eyeing the meat in his hands rather dubiously. "Well go on." Julie urged, and smiled when he complied by taking a messy bite of the meat. "Nnghhh, good." R grunted and licked his lips happily. He realized he might not be showing good manners, and reached for a paper napkin after the next juicy bite. He finished his meal in record time, and smiled up at Julie who grinned back. "Thank y-" his gratitude was cut off as a burp escaped him and he quickly covered his mouth, mumbling "sorry" through his fingers. Julie laughed. "Hey, so long as you don't have to eat any more people right?" She squeezed his hand.

A couple weeks after Julie had helped R begin to adjust to a new diet, she came back from her rounds and was surprised not to find the boy waiting for her the exact moment she got back (which she had unashamedly gotten used to.) Wondering what could be going on, she left her equipment in the front room and began searching the house for R. She found him in the living room, sprawled out on the sofa, moaning. Except it wasn't the empty, breathless moaning associated with corpses who hadn't quite made it back to life yet. These moans were filled with pain, a realization that shocked her and had her running to his side. "R? R what's wrong? Talk to me!" He swallowed thickly. "Got hungry. No meat here so I tried to eat vegetables like you said." "Oh..." Julie breathed, seeing his hands clutching his stomach. "It's way too soon for that, R. You've got to take these things slowly. Here, let's see..." She helped him sit up and lifted his shirt, feeling around his still-not-quite-human stomach. "Nora says others like you are having the same problem, but she's also seen you guys eat vegetables before and says it doesn't cause lasting damage to you or anything. Just that it hurts a lot unless you can make yourself puke." R gave her a glassy eyes look of confusion. "Huh?" "You know, throw up." She looked at him, one eyebrow raised. "Did you never throw up while you were a corpse?" "Don't think so."

Ten minutes later, Julie rubbed R's back while he held a trashcan to his face and ejected the contents of his stomach. Before she tied the bag to toss it out, Julie glanced at the contents and laughed as she wrinkled her nose. "Really R? Broccoli?" She threw the bag in the dumpster just outside the door before returning to sit next to him on the couch. "Feeling better?" "Yeah." He nodded jerkily. "Sorry for-" "You apologize too much." She cut him off, noting that he was still holding his stomach even though he claimed to be feeling better. "Sure you're okay?" He hesitated. "Still hurts a little." "A little?" "A lot." He finally conceded. He leaned back against the couch with another soft moan. "Worth it to be human again." Julie chuckled, grinning. "You say the cheesiest things. "Like to see you smile that way."

She looked over her shoulder and saw him smiling too, his face slowly regaining its former warmth and color. He was so gentle towards her, and she knew it was partly because he still couldn't understand why she had decided she loved him. She didn't know how she could ever convince him that he was a far better human being than most. His tender smile faded abruptly as he grimaced with pain. Feeling sympathetic, she leaned against his shoulder and reached for his stomach, carefully shoving aside his hands to keep him from fending her off. R was very confused at first, but wanted very much not to offend Julie by moving away from her, so he sat still. She began rubbing the surface of his stomach, soothing the pain and upset feeling. He sighed contentedly; closing his eyes and began drifting off. Julie smiled as she continued the massage to his abused insides, hoping that his stomach would get better soon so they could continue helping him adjust so that hopefully, this wouldn't happen again.


	16. Chapter 16

It only really hits Julie just how utterly living R is when they're in a circumstance she'd rather be focusing on other things.

It occurs to her that she's being silly and kind of pointless, and that right now it should be the moment and the moment only, but she can't help but notice his quiet, yet heavy breathing against her face and think, wow.

With one hand on his waist and the other lingering against his arm, her fingers brush against his bare skin, and it's so warm. She loses control of her hands, finds herself playing imaginary piano tunes on his shoulder, and the sweat beneath her fingertips only pulls her thoughts out further.

She can feel his heart beating. Each thump against his ribcage resonates through her, a quick, uneven rhythm like the bass line of a song. And in the midst of touches and gentle kisses, for the first time, Julie fully understands life in all its depressing glory, and her breathing quickens.

All at once, she finds herself acutely aware of everything, and the party her senses are throwing bring her focus out into an unreachable, exclusive third world, where she can hear the blood cells swimming.

He has BLOOD, that warm, red liquid, flowing through capillaries and veins and arteries in an infinite cycle, pumping his heart like a machine, and she can hear his chest rising and falling with every inhale, lungs thrusting out and sucking in air because he needs it now, to survive, and the idea of dependency both thrills and terrifies her.

And he has skin that bleeds and pores and glands that produce sweat – his messy black hair is so damp – and fragile bones that bend and break, but always heal in some way or another.

And a brain, god, R's brain. Filled with thoughts and ideas too intricate and wild for her to even begin to understand, filled with questions she will never be able to answer, and feelings too complex for her to ever feel. His brain that gave him that little spark of life, that made him more than just Living, that little spark of life he had even when he was Dead.

Suddenly, she finds herself hesitating, going still, because she wants so badly to savour this moment and let it linger.

One day, whether they wanted it or not, the blood would reach a dead end, go thick, and dry up in those capillaries, and the heart would stop beating and lie still, and the lungs would fill with dry, musty air, and they would be dead, just not Dead this time. And their lifeless shells would be buried deep in the ground, and the Life that they once held would be passed on to a new child, that, in the end, shared the same fate.

And no matter how content they were to hold each other and lie there in this moment, their fate had been decided from the start, and the price of having Life is that it will always, always, be taken from you.

Julie must have gone very still against him, because R slowly pulls back, his hands on her face, and searches her eyes carefully.

"Julie?" he ventures, his voice soft, and slightly concerned.

"Mm?" she absently responds after a few moments, though her eyes are lingering on the prominent line of his jaw.

"Are you okay?"

His question taking a moment before it clicks in properly, she shakes her head dismissively, mumbling, "N- no, it's nothing, just-"

She falters.

R just blinks, patiently waiting for her continuation, despite his confusion.

"You," she finishes eventually, gesturing vaguely with her hands to his general being.

He raises his brow, lazily pointing to his chest. "Me," he repeats, and she can't tell whether it's a question or a statement, but his voice is restrained with uncertainty.

"It doesn't matter," she flushes, scrunching up her face as if confused with herself. "It was nothing."

His vibrant blue eyes never once leave her features, and he still looks as if he doesn't believe her, but he shrugs nevertheless and says, "Okay."

Julie nods in agreement, ignoring the shrug, and wraps her arms around his neck. "Okay, right." She breathes in slightly. Her words are slow and articulate. "Continue."

The corners of R's lips are tugged upwards slightly in a bemused smile, but he nods too, sucking in a deep breath. Searching her eyes again, he gently slides his fingers into the hair above her ear, and inclines his head forwards, slowly. Julie smiles, and closes her eyes.

And then he snorts at the last minute, averting the kiss by burying his face into her shoulder, his back quivering with silent laughter. Julie thumps his shoulder lightly, whining, "R!"

He's still sniggering and grinning when he tentatively raises his head a few seconds later, saying, "Sorry, it's just, nothing, i- it's just-"

Oh no. He wasn't.

"-You." He gestures to her.

Julie glares at him. "R!"

R swallows, still grinning, before forcing the smile off his face and frowning. "Okay. Sorry. I'll be serious now. Serious." At the solemn look on his face, she can't help but snort too, and as he attempts at leaning forward again she hangs her head back with laughter, causing him to groan and his head to fall onto her shoulder again. "Oh my god," she exclaims, shaking with mirth and giggles, giddy with the ridiculousness of the situation. "It was just- y- your face."

She feels his lips form into a smile against her collarbone, but as he sits up his face is expectant, as if waiting for her to elaborate. She's still shaking her head. "Oh god, it was just," she looks at him, pouting and furrowing her brow with the most outlandish expression she could muster, chiding, "Mr Grumpy Face." He has to splutter at that, unable to contain his amusement. His laughter, though, is far quieter and more restrained than Julie's, as he shakes his head and utters, "We can't do this."

"No," she agrees, brushing her lips against his cheekbone with a suppressed giggle.

"Who needs that, though, right?" Her arms wrap around his waist and pull him closer, nestling her chin into the crook of his neck.

One hand stroking slowly up and down his spine, the other resting on his shoulders and playing fondly with his hair, she throws a sly glance up at him even though he can't see her. "Umm, sure," he consents, although she detects a trace of sarcasm in his tone. Rolling her eyes and grinning, her hands go still and she tightens her grip on him.

She says no more.

A few hours later, when they're lying on Julie's bed, her hand on his chest and his arm supporting her, R is doing that thing again where he could be asleep and he could just be thinking, and Julie comments matter-of-factly, "You used to be Dead." He blinks an eye open and studies her, shifting beneath her hand. "I used to be dead," he confirms. She can feel the low vibrations through his skin that his speech caused, and she shivers.

"And now you're not." Her voice is quiet, and questioning, like a child, as she tilts her head to look at him.

After pausing, the statement lingering in the air, he tenses his shoulders and rolls onto his side, facing her with a hand on her waist and a grunt. "Are you okay?" he asks again, his voice ever concerned, but with a slightly condescending, 'You're acting weird' edge to it.

"I'm fine," she insists. "It's just…" She pulls him closer, closing her eyes and resting her head gently on his shoulder. "There is something I've wanted to know, though, since the airport."

"Oh?"

"Back when you first saved me, did you ever feel like you wanted to, you know, eat me? I mean, you were a zombie after all," Julie asked cautiously.

R tilted his head, studying me closely as she sat down. "Why do you want to know that?" Julie shrugged. Honestly, she didn't know why. It was curiosity that drove her to ask him.

He breathed in and exhaled a deep sigh. "Yeah, I got the urges. Your flesh...it smelt so good. It was like a drug to me, better than anyone I had encountered. But there was something about you, though. It attracted me to you, and I knew from that moment that I couldn't hurt you. I wanted to save you."

What he said was incredibly disturbing yet flattering and wonderful as well. It was all in one package. Julie decided that sitting here saying nothing wasn't accomplishing anything. "I was afraid. Really afraid-actually, especially the first night you brought me back to the plane. I didn't know what you were up to, or if I was just some meal that you were saving for later. But the way you looked at me afterwards, the way you tried to talk...I knew that something was different. I didn't know what you were."

R nodded in complete understanding. "When did you finally trust me?"

"The next day," she chuckled, "The second time you saved me when I tried to escape. I knew you didn't consider me as your next meal after that. What really confused me, though, was when I told you about Perry. You placed your hand on your heart, then on mine. I thought I had you figured out, and then you went ahead and did that."

Without a response, R sat back down on the bed and leaned in towards her neck, brushing her hair aside with his hand. "I can't smell your flesh anymore, but I know it's there. I wanted you, but for different reasons."

Her heart leaped suddenly from the low humming in his voice coming through her ear. She half expected him to pull away, but he didn't. "And what are those reasons?"

"Being close to you, conversations, having your touch...just everything I assume a guy wants in a relationship with a girl. Not that I didn't want them before when I was Dead, but now I can actually feel and describe it," R said gently as his forehead trailed down her neck and rested it there for a few moments, seeming as though he were trying to fight from losing his self-control to kiss every inch of her neck.

"Well," Julie said, trying to keep her emotions calm, "We haven't really talked about a relationship yet."

"You already know my answer," He smiled, grabbing her hands in his, and she looked at him questionably. "Julie, I want you more than anything. I want you to be mine."


	17. Chapter 17

R can't remember the difference between "romantic" and "creepy." Julie's been nice about explaining for R to make notes: a heart-shaped box of candy is romantic, the heart out of the chicken they made for dinner last night is not.

Julie isn't any better at romance. Her life has been terror and a dead boyfriend who loved the cause more than he loved her. If pretty jewelry can't be used to save her life, it's useless.

Sometimes, though, they stretch out together, watching the jealous moon rise through the window, and the warmth she feels is hotter than the sunrise.

* * *

><p><p>

Are these the color she likes? Are these the right flowers?

I think they're the right flowers. She said periwinkles. Or was it Lily of the Valley? No, they were blue flowers so...to the lily flowers come in blue?

These aren't blue though.  
>They're periwinkle colored. I think.<p>

I smack my forehead with a ringing slap that echoes in the whole room. The urge to chuck the flowers is there but...I spent most of the day hunting them down at the border of the city. And, well, I think they look nice.

...Will she think they're nice? Oh shit. I'm more a mess now than before. And I ate brains about two weeks ago.

"R?" I felt my spine jerk straight. She went out with Nora today. To the hospital on the east side of town. They went late. She was supposed to be home at dusk, not now. The door shut and I heard the soft clump of her boots as she came into the hall proper. I could practically feel when her eyes hit me. "Hey, you okay?"

I turned slowly, nearly felt like my old dead self again with how my limbs stiffened and I barely moved my head. The flowers stood up straight from my hand, bright and purple-y, periwinkle colored and I simply went blank.

Julie didn't miss a beat though. Her eyes flashed back and forth for a moment before a bright smile lit up her face. "Are those for me?"

"Y-y-yeah." Smooth, asshole, real smooth. "I mean, yes. You said you hadn't seen them in a while and-and I know a field by the highway where they grow so...I brought them back when scouting." Better...I think?

A blur of movement and a second later, her arms wrapped around my shoulders. Instinct dictated and I immediately held her back. She smelled of city - dust, dirt and sweat from walking and moving - but her underlying scent reached up. That distinct smell of Julie. I picked up on it as a corpse, it's how I knew where she went and how far away she was, and I managed to keep it with me. She stepped back after a moment, her eyes sparkling before leaning forward and kissing me.

Oh, God, I love her kisses. Feels like time slipped by, day turned to night, people came and went, I'm also pretty sure Nora just whistled at us on her way upstairs. When our lips parted, I smiled with my eyes closed.

I felt her fingers opening mine and popped my eyes open to see her taking the flowers. "Periwinkles? You remembered? Thank you so much!" she grinned. Her eyes closed as she inhaled deeply, making a satisfied noise in the back of her throat before looking at me again. Her one arm came around my neck and she pulled me close again. "Thank you, R," she whispered.

We kissed again and between her happiness, her smile and her ever so soft lips, I swore I felt more human than ever I had.

Before and after the brains eating thing.


End file.
